


Poppy in Mythic Quest

by onemechanicalalligator



Series: Brad & Poppy [1]
Category: Mythic Quest: Raven's Banquet (TV)
Genre: Angst, Character Study, Gen, Loneliness, Quarantine
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-03
Updated: 2020-10-03
Packaged: 2021-03-08 03:08:48
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,057
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26798605
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/onemechanicalalligator/pseuds/onemechanicalalligator
Summary: Real talk: I'm struggling with the quarantine and I decided to project that onto Poppy.Prequel to "Calling Poppy."
Series: Brad & Poppy [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1933696
Comments: 4
Kudos: 21





	Poppy in Mythic Quest

The quarantine has started to make Poppy Li feel a little bit like Alice in Wonderland.

When she looks around her apartment, she recognizes the things around her, except they’re different. She can’t put a finger on what it  _ is _ that’s different, because they  _ look _ the same. But something about them is different. Something about her bed and her refrigerator and the poster on her wall and the candle on her shelf and the dozens of laptops scattered around her living room, something is different.

She feels unsettled. Uncomfortable. Anxious. She’s done with her work and she’s all alone and everything feels wrong, and she doesn’t know how to make this feeling go away. Doesn’t know how to feel normal again. Doesn’t remember what normal even feels like. She feels like she’s in a movie, or a dream. Something unnatural. Like she’s floating, maybe, or unsteady. Like she’s on the sea or in the air.

It would feel less weird to see her living space coded into Mythic Quest: Raven’s Banquet, she thinks. Less bizarre to see the CGI version of her life. She spends so much time in the game anyway, she thinks that might even be a welcome sight. It would feel safe. She could be Poppy in Mythic Quest, instead of Alice in Wonderland. She would be at home. It would feel real.

Poppy doesn’t feel safe, or home, or real. She feels lonely and confused. Turned around. Wobbly. She doesn’t know how to define herself when she doesn’t have work and she can’t leave her home and everything is different and wrong. She doesn’t know who she even is anymore, like she’s a new person, and she doesn’t know how that person is supposed to be.

She sees no end to this in sight, and maybe that’s the worst part. She doesn’t know when things will get better, when her life will start to look familiar, when she’ll be able to leave her apartment. When she’ll be able to go back to work, to see her coworkers, who are also her friends. She doesn’t know when she can stop getting groceries delivered, when she can go back to the library, back to the gym. When she can go out for a drink after a long day at work.

It feels endless, like a dark tunnel, and she can’t even see the light at the end yet. 

She is desperate for something to cling to. She starts sleeping with the stuffed lamb she’s had since she was a baby, a soft cuddly thing she’s never slept with as an adult. She wonders if it will be able to ground her somehow, to make her feel safe again. She wraps her arms around her body, lays on the floor with her feet up against the wall. Tries to remember how her body fits into the world.

She develops a vaccine for Blood Ocean, and she hopes it will make her feel powerful, make her feel less helpless against the Real Virus, but it doesn’t, not even a little bit. If anything, it makes her feel powerless, because it just keeps her distracted for a few more days, and then it’s back to nothingness. Back to aimlessness.

It’s important that no one knows she’s feeling this way, which is why she keeps her camera covered, why she ignores the calls that come. It’s important that her coworkers think she’s coping fine, because she will not be the only one who can’t handle things. She will not be the only one who can’t take care of herself. She will not be the only one who’s not a responsible adult.

It’s embarrassing, really, to be like this. To be so scared and rattled. To be so weak. Poppy knows she looks terrible, too. She’s been too afraid to shower, or sometimes too sad, and her hair is stringy. Her skin is pale, and she can’t seem to make her eyes stop watering, like they need to just be ready to cry at any given moment. And that’s exactly what it is, because she seems to burst into tears at random these days.

She’s never considered herself to be the most social of people, and this desperate longing for human contact is foreign to her. She wants to talk to someone, to touch someone. To know that someone else exists in the world, outside the bounds of a screen. 

Poppy just wants a hug.

And she wants it so bad she won’t say it out loud, not that she has anyone to say it to, anyway. She barely lets herself think it. It just hovers on the edge of her consciousness, this deep desire, this yearning for the thing that she knows she can’t have. She thinks she’s about ready to sacrifice her own safety and well-being for something so seemingly innocuous, but she could never do that to another person. Could never ask someone to take that risk for  _ her. _

She’s thinking about this when the call comes from Ian.

She’s thinking about this when she answers with the camera covered.

She’s thinking about this when she uncovers it, lets Ian see what’s happened to her.

It’s new, crying like this both alone and in front of Ian at the same time. Trying to explain what’s happening, and struggling to find the right words. Letting herself be so vulnerable with someone she works with, even if she’s known and been friends with him for many years.

It’s embarrassing.

It’s awkward.

It’s horrifying.

It’s cathartic.

It’s therapeutic.

It’s connection.

And then he’s there, at the door, and he’s giving her the hug, the one she was willing to essentially die for.  _ He’s giving her this gift. _ And she clings to him, cries all over him, lets herself feel something real and true and important. Lets herself be touched by another human. 

It’s too much, and it’s not enough.

It’s the cure.

When Ian leaves, Poppy steps back into her apartment and she recognizes everything. For the moment, at least, her life is back, everything in its right place, looking exactly the way it always has. The relief from that is incredible, the relief from knowing she’s no longer lost, no longer unsettled. Knowing her life is her own again.

She’s not Alice in Wonderland.

She’s Poppy in Mythic Quest. 


End file.
